Sudan protesters call for mass rally
khartoum — Sudan’s leading protest group called on Tuesday for a mass rally, as tensions mounted over the makeup of a new joint civilian-military council to run the country.
Demonstrators reinforced their barricades outside the army headquarters in Khartoum after the two sides failed to agree on the number of council seats for civilian and military representatives.
The joint council is supposed to replace the military body that took power after the army ousted veteran president Omar Al Bashir on April 11 in the face of mass protests against his three-decade rule.
But the two sides are at odds over its composition, with the military pushing for a 10-member council including seven military representatives and three civilians.
The disagreements prompted the Alliance for Freedom and Change to announce a “millionstrong march on May 2 to assert our main demand, which is for civilian rule”.
Risking the anger of demonstrators, a top Sudanese general announced Tuesday that the new body would be headed by current military ruler General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan. Protesters have called the military council headed by Burhan “a copy cat of the toppled regime”. They want a majority of civilians on a 15-member joint council with seven military representatives. Adding to the deepening discord, the military council said that six security personnel were killed in clashes with protesters across the country on Monday. “In different incidents, six people from the security forces were killed and 16 wounded,” said the council’s deputy chief Mohammad Hamdan Dagolo, who is widely known as Himeidti.
“There were incidents of burning of markets and looting,” he said. —